R.E.M. Roundup

I was saving that title for my book, dammit! j/k

R.E.M. will release a career retrospective album called Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbageon November 15th. It contains 40 songs including three new tracks recorded this summer in Athens: “A Month of Saturdays,” “Hallelujah,” and “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” which will be released as a single on October 18th. It features liner notes from Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe. Tracklist is here.

The release and the title of this album reveals what many have suspected, that R.E.M. has had this retirement in mind for a while. Mills confirmed as much to Rolling Stone in an article from the upcoming Oct. 13th issue.The band delayed the announcement because “a lot of people are affected by this decision in a serious way,” Mills says, referring to R.E.M.’s staff and crew. “We wanted everything set up the way it should be. Which leads to our next topic that a lot of you have been emailing AMJ about…

RE: R.E.M. FanclubIf you had renewed/were “in” by Sept 21, you’ll get this year’s Christmas package and possibly 1 more newsletters. There will be no more fanclub new memberships or renewals. 😦

Coldplay on R.E.M.If you happened to be at Music Midtown in ATL on Saturday, you might’ve seen Coldplay. Chris Martin’s friendship with Stipe has been well documented and the British singer saw fit to pay tribute to our fine Georgia band by performing “Everybody Hurts.” Nothing like 45,000 people singing along…